CCHS Chat - entry Sept 2015.

[pinkrabbit38]

How do you know its purple??? DD is in Hepburn. what colour are they?
No pen pal letter? OOPs, just found it!
Just lots of letters requesting money as far as I could see!

Hepburn is red....it's on the uniform letter.xx

[ohnoyoudidnt]

I must admit I got bored reading through the letters!

DD is very happy as Matilda is her favourite musical and they are doing that song in choir at school anyway, so she knows it already.

[Proudmum78]

Well DD1 was very excited when the pack arrived in the post on Friday, I was less excited when I saw the volume of money requests, and even a suggestion of adding CCHS to my will!! Well that really took me by surprise...

So after spending a fair amount of time reading, signing, tearing off slips I have now activated the parent pay account but I cannot figure out how I top up and how I pay for all the things in these slips of paper, the only thing I can pay is £60 for a summer ball in June and £10 for the building fund, very confused! If any of you have figured it out could you please let me know...

My daughter lives in South Woodham and is in the S/Stewart/Yellow form. She attended the netball last week and enjoyed that, so far so good. The letter from the penpals is a brilliant idea and I am pleased that we get to go to the school twice before starting in September,

I suspect these money requests will become the norm, I think I read that grammars had their funding cut in favour of underachieving schools so they are going to need to raise extra money for projects.

Hope you are all enjoying your long weekends,

[ohnoyoudidnt]

DD has enjoyed the netball.

I havent even started to fill out the forms yet!
I tried to persuade DD to reply to her penpal letter, but I dont think she will.
She had a bit of a melt down yesterday about the transistion. I think its all
getting a bit real now, shes the only one going to CCHS from her school and
I think shes feeling it.

[pushymother]

DD has enjoyed the netball.

I havent even started to fill out the forms yet!
I tried to persuade DD to reply to her penpal letter, but I dont think she will.
She had a bit of a melt down yesterday about the transistion. I think its all
getting a bit real now, shes the only one going to CCHS from her school and
I think shes feeling it.

Try to reassure her that there will be many girls in that position. My DD's classmate is the only one from our primary school that is going to CCHS out of 90 kids in the year group (school is out of catchment for all Essex/Southend Grammars). Only 3 girls and 2 boys got into the grammars from our primary school. My DD has one other classmate going to WHSG but she has always been in a different form group the whole seven years so not that close friendship wise...

[TP123]

TP123 - they are held over the two days so hold off booking time off until you get a specific day and time. They don't last very long, it's just a chat with a teacher really, so you may not have to take a whole day. Last year DD went at around 10.30 on the Tuesday so I took her for lunch afterwards and she went back to school in the afternoon (evil mum!).

They try and schedule them so that girls in the same house have their meeting at similar times, although they are all too shy and nervous to talk to one another! The Year 11's hold it all together by talking to them and asking them lots of questions!

Many thanks mumofgirls! Am glad I didn't book off the 9th as our meeting is now on 8th!

My DD is in 7C - Curie, Green. She was so excited and we both began reading the letter but then stopped as there was way too much.

We were hoping to do some of the music lessons, but having them during lessons is a put off at the moment. Does anyone else have experience of doing music lessons during other lesson times - and has that been a problem?

Thanks!

[pinkrabbit38]

TP123 - they are held over the two days so hold off booking time off until you get a specific day and time. They don't last very long, it's just a chat with a teacher really, so you may not have to take a whole day. Last year DD went at around 10.30 on the Tuesday so I took her for lunch afterwards and she went back to school in the afternoon (evil mum!).

They try and schedule them so that girls in the same house have their meeting at similar times, although they are all too shy and nervous to talk to one another! The Year 11's hold it all together by talking to them and asking them lots of questions!

Many thanks mumofgirls! Am glad I didn't book off the 9th as our meeting is now on 8th!

My DD is in 7C - Curie, Green. She was so excited and we both began reading the letter but then stopped as there was way too much.

We were hoping to do some of the music lessons, but having them during lessons is a put off at the moment. Does anyone else have experience of doing music lessons during other lesson times - and has that been a problem?

Thanks!

The time changes each week so that they don't miss the same lesson each week.

[TP123]

The time changes each week so that they don't miss the same lesson each week.

Thanks

[mumof2girls]

Hi all, will try and answer some questions:

ohnoyoudidnt - my DD is in Hepburn too. She too is the only one going to any grammar, although she obviously has her sibling there. We had plenty of meltdowns with DD1 last year, she now has lots of friends in all the different houses and loves it, but would not be convinced of that at the time! Haven't had any yet with DD2 but there is still time...all you can do is keep reiterating that she will make friends, there are lots in the same boat etc etc, probably after the induction day she will feel better, last year the girls swapped numbers etc so they could stay in contact.

TP123 - DD1 doesn't do music lessons but as pinkrabbit says, they change the time, but the girls are expected to catch up on what they missed.

Proudmum - I really can't remember what happened with the paypal last year. I think maybe you have to wait until they receive your forms and they activate things then...wracking my brains but really don't remember. There is still lots of time. I don't think you can put money on their lunch card etc until the first day when they actually get it. And yes... get used to being asked for money constantly!

If anyone has any other questions please shout. Good luck to your DDs for their "interviews".

[TP123]

Thanks mumof2girls!

Can you please tell us more about the "interviews"? Is it parents and DD with a teacher? Will we be asked questions? Is it a chance for us to ask questions?

Any advice on Do's and Don'ts?